


Sokkla Stories

by TalesOfOnyxBats



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Awkwardness, Camping, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Secret Relationship, Star-crossed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-22 22:49:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16606904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TalesOfOnyxBats/pseuds/TalesOfOnyxBats
Summary: A collection of one shots from the Sokkla Mini-Week. Awkwardness: Azula walks in on Sokka changing at a party. Secrets: On opposite sides of the war, Azula and Sokka have a secret romance. Comfort: Sokka struggles with always having to be the shoulder to cry on. Autumn: Sokka takes Azula camping.





	1. Chapter 1

She isn’t at all familiar with the place. Frankly, she doesn’t know why Zuko has even brought her along. It wasn’t as though it was an event of any importance. No, it was little more than a fancy get together hosted by Earth King Kuei. Azula isn’t one for parties, especially not after her first experience with one. Political gatherings, sure, but this…this is just for entertainment. ‘To relive stress’, as Zu-Zu put it. She couldn’t see it soothing any of her tension. In fact, she had every intention of ditching the party scene at first opportunity.

She sticks around only long enough to seem polite, which entailed some socializing over an appetizer platter or two. Mostly she sips at a bottle of peach sake. It sooths her nerves and takes some of the edge off. A little further into the drink than she had intended, she worries that her tongue will become too lax and excuses herself.

For a moment—she likes to blame it on the drink—she forgets that she isn’t at home. The Earth Kingdom palace is larger than she has anticipated and she thinks that she may be lost. No, she knows that she is lost, she is wandering rather aimlessly. She doesn’t even recall where she had planned on sneaking off to. That’s right, she tells herself, she’d forgotten where she was and for it she had planned on finding her bedroom. She supposes she’ll just have to find another, hopefully with a balcony. Balconies seem to be the place to be if one loses interest in the party itself.

She travels to the third floor and pushes on the first door she sees, only after having done so, she considers what she might find. Granted she hadn’t heard any sort of racket coming from behind the door. So she assumes that she is safe.

The room itself is quiet, indeed so she finds the bed and drops onto it, laying with her hair fanned out and her hands tucked under her head.

The moment of quiet doesn’t last, she hears a rustling from across the room. She bolts up again to see Sokka’s bear ass. His pants and underpants are only half up. His face is as flushed as hers, maybe even more so. He quickly scrambles to tug them up the rest of the way.

“Wha-what are you doing?” There a very few things that can catch Azula off guard, and he has discovered one of them.

“I spilled some juice on my pants so I ran up here to change!” Everything about his tone is on the defensive. “Why are you here?” And that fell on the accusatory side.

Azula sighs, trying to cool her cheeks. “I don’t much like social parties, like this.” She confesses. “I came up here for some quiet.”

“You had to pick this room?” Sokka sputters, “you’re a royal, you’re supposed to know about knocking.”

Azula shrugs. “I’m a royal, I go where I please. I don’t need permission.” She replies with a dismissive wave. “And besides, I didn’t hear anything so I figure this room wasn’t…occupied.” She pauses. “Not like the others anyways.”

Sokka narrows his eyes. “I guess.”

She crosses her arms. Sitting in silence, it doesn’t take long for her eyes to wander. He is still topless. Topless and in very good shape, with the kind of abs worth trailing her fingers over. A sculpted chest…

She shakes her head, what is she thinking? He’s Sokka, the water peasant’s brother. The idiot. Again she tries to blame the sake for tainting her vision and bringing out her libido.

But he isn’t really, she knows it. She just needs an extra push to keep herself in check. She picks up his shirt and thrusts it at him, “have some decency.”

Sokka blinks. “Decency? I don’t know if you know this, but men run around topless all the time.”

“Great for men.” Azula mutters, only because she knows that he has a point. “Just put your shirt back on, before you make things weird.”

“I make things weird?” He points to himself. “You made things weird when you barged in here without knocking.”

Another good point. She was an a losing streak—a petty, trivial losing streak—but a losing streak no less. “Well perhaps you should have put a sign up. Or, if you are too uncultured to write, you should have spoke up when you heard the door open. You know, instead of letting me get cozy.” She smiles smugly because it is, in her opinion, a satisfactory argument.

He opens his mouth only to close it a few times and she knows that she has won this silly verbal spat. Her mind goes back to her initial task. She tosses the shirt at him. “Put it on.”

Sokka rolls his eyes and tugs it over his head. “Happy?”

She nods. But a part of her actually is not satisfied. That part still wants to take in his sculpted abs and toned arms. “Quite.”

He is staring at her now and she doesn’t know how to feel about it. She averts her gaze, brushes a sweep of hair over her shoulder, and pretends to pick some fuzz off of her top. She finds herself hoping that she at least looks presentable in his eyes.

She thinks that her face might have colored again and it frustrates her. She didn’t think she had drank that much.

.oOo.

Sokka doesn’t think that he has ever seen Azula so flustered. He can smell a faint tinge of sake and he wants to blame the drink for the pink in her cheeks, but somehow he knows that it is an old fashioned blush. Despite it all he feels bad for making her feel so awkward and out of sorts. Granted he is rather embarrassed himself.

He let her see him with his pants half-down.

He stuffs his hands into his pockets and looks at the ceiling. When he finds the courage to look back down, she is sitting with her arms propping her up, weight shifted more-so onto the right arm. She crosses one leg over the other and seems to stare at her lap as she taps one foot. Her cheeks look less pink now. He can’t help but note that she does look rather lovely tonight. She looks nice with her hair down. And the gown she has chosen is rather elegant. It suits her well and accents her figure. It is fuller than he remembers, more grown up. Her face is some sharper too.

But her expression.

That is notably softer. It takes him a moment to realize, but he thinks that, that is why she looks extraordinarily wonderful tonight. It is because she doesn’t have such an evil presence about her. She, for the situation, almost seems relaxed. 

She crosses her arms again, holding them against her middle as opposed to her chest.

Against his better judgment, he tucks her bangs behind her ear and brushes his thumb over her exposed cheek. He can’t quite believe that she is letting him do it. So when he feels her fingers wrap around his wrist, he expects a lash out. But she simply holds his wrists and stares at him. He doesn’t think that she knows what to do next.

Briefly he thinks of kissing the princess, but before—and perhaps mercifully—before he gets the chance, she effectively ruins the mood. “Just so we’re clear I’m not going to be that person.” She declares. “I’m not getting knocked up at a party.”

Sokka rolls his eyes, the woman really is hellbent on making things as weird as she can. Truly she must have been a thrill downstairs. “I wasn’t planning on doing anything like that with you!”

He can’t possibly fathom why Azula looks so smug. He senses that it would be a good time to get back to the party scene. But she still has him by the wrist and the smug look is gone. It takes him a second to realize that she is rubbing her thumb over his wrists. But again, she seems to be at a loss as to what comes next.

He doesn’t want to make her uncomfortable so with a sigh he asks, “so you up for going back to the party or…?”

Azula cocks her head and withdraws her hand. “I think that I might be.”

.oOo.

She doesn’t exactly know what is going on in her head. The feeling is foreign and somewhat disorienting. In avoiding the first, she has put herself in another, different situation she doesn’t know how to navigate. She is grateful that he hasn’t taken advantage of that. He takes her hand and leads her down the hall. She thinks that it might be a good idea to jerk away, but she feels safer as they are. She admits to herself that she is a little lost here and it is reassuring to have a familiar face so close. Even if the face belonged to someone she hadn’t particularly gotten along with in the past. They don’t say much to one another for a while. Not until they reach the second floor. Finally Azula finds the courage to thank him for respecting her boundaries, as grey as she had made them.

He smiles. “It’s no big deal.”

She lets the conversation drop again and it takes until the first floor to set her pride enough to the side to thank him for accompanying her back to the party. She didn’t want to return alone. Even with a rekindled friendship, Mai and TyLee weren’t much use here. They had conversed in the beginning but eventually Mai had gone off with Zuko and TyLee’s attention was tugged by a herd of boys.

He nods. “Yeah, no one likes to be alone at a party. You don’t mind talking with Aang, Toph, and Katara, do you?”

She shrugs, “I suppose that it can’t hurt.”

“Great!” He says boldly, “I’ll re-introduce you.”

That was just one more thing that was oddly reassuring. She is glad that things took a turn from awkward to something rather promising.


	2. Until The End Of The War

He scaled the palace with a purpose. He did it methodically and quick. It was almost second nature at that point, he has done it so many times. He knows the structure and build of the palace just as well as he knows the build of Azula. He has ran his fingers through her har and ran his hands over her frame so many times before. In years to come he couldn't imagine himself forgetting the feel of it.

He went through the window, ducking under the curtains. Azula was asleep, perhaps he had taken too long this time, usually the girl was awake and waiting for him. He went to sit at the foot of her bed, watching her breathe for a moment. She seemed to be sleeping rather easily, her lips were slightly parted and she was murmuring something soft and indistinguishable. Sokka had to laugh, he would have never taken her for a sleep talker.

It was little moments like that, that made him forget how angry it made him that he was nothing more than her naughty little secret. The one that had to crawl through the windows at night. Nothing more than a potential scandal.

Some time ago he had grown brazen enough to tell her to just share their relationship, only to find that she'd kept in under the wraps for a good reason. He had been recklessly loud in his demand and it could have cost him everything and cost her more. She hushed him very quickly with a fireball to the stomach, just in time for the palace guard to burst in and see. He had been terribly pissed, but that fireball saved his life—that very genuine burst of anger on her end, saved them both. It was what had the guards spinning a tale about an assassination attempt rather than a secret, Water Tribe lover. He couldn't go to see her for months after that and he was too pissed to want to do so anyhow. By the time his anger cooled, so did the paranoia left by his supposed attack. He had come back and offered to meet her away from the palace for a discussion. One that ended up involving a lot of yelling and hollering, mostly from him as she stood by passively and uncaringly. Getting an explanation from her had been just about as easy as putting out an active volcano.

When he did get his answers, they were uncharacteristically emotional to the point where he had regretted asking at all. Uncharacteristically tearful to the point where he understood why she was so tight lipped. Before then, he had never seen her cry and he didn't like it in the slightest.

What it boiled down to was that things had to be stealthy and secretive lest her father take notice and hand him an ass kicking he'd never recover from. No, he would be killed on the spot and she would be disowned at best. Killed alongside him at worst. Interatrial couples were highly illegal and a very solid example would be made of the both of them; the princess can't date a Water Tribesman, so the lower class better stay in place.

He didn't want to become an example any more than she did.

They were stuck.

He frowned to himself. It always hurt to think about, so instead he eyed her sleeping form, bundled up very tightly in silks. She looked very comfortable. Even so, she stirred, rubbing her face against her pillow and with another sleepy mumble rolled from her back, onto her side. She muttered something else and his stomach fluttered. Come to think of it, before then, he had never seen her sleep before.

He gently shook her shoulder. "Hey, Azula, I'm here."

She jolted awake, fire flickering on her palms. It died as soon as his face registered. Still he received a good whack on the arm. "Don't do that, you barbarian." She hissed.

He gave a muffled laugh. "Sorry."

She folded her arms across her chest. He could tell that, that night wasn't going to be a very sensual one. In the past year or so he had grown rather familiar with her moods. That night was a sleepy—if he was lucky—cuddly one. The kind of night where she would likely just ask him to lay down next to her and perhaps tell her a Water Tribe hunting story. So he scooped her into his arms.

"Zu-Zu came home."

"Well that's great." He grumbled. "So I'll have to sneak around him too?"

Azula shook her head. "I think that he already knows…" She whispered. "He's dangerous. If I make him angry enough…" She trailed off. "He has leverage now."

"So. Don't make him angry."

Azula winced. "Too late."

"What did you do?" Sokka asked.

"He can hold a grudge. He's not used to having the upper hand and now he has it. Why wouldn't he use it, he can secure himself for life." She stated flatly. And even more disturbingly dryly she added, "we need to get rid of him."

"Alright, we can send him back to…"

Azula cut him off. "No. We need to kill him. I suppose I can do it so long as you don't mind taking the fall as the assassin." Her expression was dark and somber. "I've never killed someone before." She pauses. "He's still alive. The Avatar, I mean. I can see that much on Zu-Zu's face."

"You don't have to kill your brother." Sokka took her hands. "We can…"

"I'm not running away." Azula interrupted. "I like it here. I can't imagine not having all of this. I'm supposed to do great things for my nation, and I will."

And there it was, the thing that he had feared. Azula was faithful to him as far as other human beings went. But where other things were concerned her heart was divided. He knew from the start that she loved her nation just as much as she loved him. And he knew what was coming. "Your plan doesn't include me, does it?"

"It can't."

It was expected, he knew it from the start as well as he knew the tale of the Cave of the Two Lovers. But it didn't subside his rage any. A large part of him wanted to make himself known; to scream and yell and disgrace the girl, even if it meant sealing his own fate. But he made the mistake of gazing upon her face as he so often did.

She didn't look quite so deadpan now that the words were out of her mouth. This wasn't going to be a sleepy, cuddly kind of night. It was going to be a dismal one. He was going to see her cry again and he didn't know if he could handle round two.

Especially since his own eyes had begun to water before hers had.

"I love you, princess Azula."

"You're the only one who does." And there it was, she was leaning into him again. He could see her shoulders shaking, feel her trembling against him. She wasn't a bawler. Her tears were the silent kind, more like muffled gasps. His anger melted away, in part because she was crying. In part because he then realized that her patriotism was only part of it. No, she was afraid. Afraid of her father and afraid of losing everything she had accomplished so far. He knew that he had no right to take that from her. So he rubbed her back and let her cry, wishing that he could spend the night with her.

Eventually she pulled out of his grasp and dabbed at her eyes with her blanket. She got up from the bed and moved to her nightstand, fumbling around for a while. She pulled out a brooch, took his hand, and, without a word, placed the brooch in it and closed his fingers around it. He realized that he had nothing to give her in return. "End the war for us, Sokka."

He swallowed a lump in his throat. "Your father is very powerful. I…you're better with plans and stuff. Aang's just a kid, he hasn't mastered all of the elements yet." He paused. "And you, you're still the hardest person I've ever fought against. How am I supposed to beat you?"

She smiled and he was glad that he made her do it one last time. "I'm just as good at sabotaging my own plans as I am at making them." She winked.

He nodded.

"Do your part." She replied, "I'll play mine. And when you and the Avatar win, we can pick up where we left off."

It was the glimmer of hope that he needed to keep moving forward. It was the extra incentive he needed to make sure that his side won the war. Of course, at that point he also wouldn't have minded some sort of misfortune befalling Zuko—the fatal kind—because in that moment, he never hated anyone quite as much. "I'll do my best." Sokka finally answered.

"Good." Azula replied. "Until the end of the war?" She offered, holding out her hand.

With a heart feeling heavier than it ever had, Sokka agrees. "Until the end of the war."

"No hurry, someone is coming." Azula said. He watched her climb back into bed and pull the covers up. He made his way to the window and heaved himself out onto the palace roof. When he reached the ground he looked toward the window he'd just come from. One final, prolonged glance. He wouldn't be back. Not for a year or so.

To no one at all, he repeated, "until the end of the war."


	3. Before The Fall

Azula shivered to herself, pulling her sleeping bag as tightly around herself as she possibly could. Still she couldn’t seem to keep the chill out. She dragged herself closer to the fire and put her beanie back on. Just when he wasn’t looking, she snatched Sokka’s flannel sweater and added it to the layers she already wore.

“Camping is better in the fall.” She muttered to herself, shivering. “Much better than in the summer.” She hadn’t bought it then and she certainly wasn’t falling for it now. Summer was clearly the prime time to camp.

“Here.” Sokka held out a marshmallow on a stick.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“It’s a marshmallow. You eat it. Or is that not something that happens in your family?”

“Not when the marshmallow is on a stick that was on the ground for who knows how many autumns.” Azula rolled her eyes. Even if that weren’t the case, she had no intention of taking her mittens off and she vocalized such.

It was Sokka’s turn to roll his eyes. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone with such a low cold tolerance, until now.”

“You’ve met ZuZu.” She points out.

“Just take the marshmallow.” He jabbed it at her once, missing entirely and, twice, smearing sticky fluff onto her cheek. Her lip curled up and she cringed. As if it couldn’t get any worse, Sokka leaned in and licked it off.

“You have no idea what you’re missing out on.” He remarked.

She narrowed her eyes. He probably should have known he was a goner when the mittens came off. Of course she had to play it a little safe, build up the suspense until it was so great it was unbearable. She let him fret over it for a few hours and watched him settle right back into a comfort zone. She had to give another eye roll because he should know much better by now. But his guard was fully down so she began roasting a marshmallow of her own. The first, she eats. The second, she smushes right into his nose.

He let out yelp that sounded around the forest’s entirety, echoing all the way.

A sense of petty satisfaction overtook her. She found that it somehow warmed her soul to see Sokka trying to get a messy smear of marshmallow off of his face, only to have get it onto his fingers as well. She had no intention of licking it of for him either.

Quietly, she slipped her gloves on and watched the spectacle with a smug smile.

**.oOo.**

She quite adamantly promised him that she wouldn’t be getting any sleep that night because the ground was too hard and it was too cold. But he kissed her anyways, undid her ponytail, and bundled her up in her sleeping bag and a nest of pillows and blankets. Because he knew that it did the trick every time. She would be asleep within minutes, especially if he wormed his way into her sleeping bag next to her.

He always did.

He kicked off his hiking boots and crawled in next to her, despite muffled grumbles that might have been, “this sleeping bag is too small for both of us” and, “don’t hog the blankets this time.” Something that humored him every time as she already had the majority of the blankets draped around her. But he muttered okay regardless.

“You’re something else, you know.” He muttered, partly to himself but she still replied with an, ‘oh, is that right?’ He could already detect the grogginess in her voice. Though she would never admit it, her ability to fight off sleep was terribly lacking. When the woman was tired, the woman would drop.

He brushed her hair until he thought that she was asleep, all the while relaying what he thought was the best camping story he had.

**.oOo.**

She shifted in her sleeping bag, hearing the crunch of leaves beneath her body. She sat up and picked one such leaf out of her hair. She had to confess that she was a little confused as to how a pile of dead leaves ended up in her hair and all over her blankets.

The confusion didn’t last when she found herself met with a chilly, almost nippy breeze. It set in that she was colder than the night before. She gave Sokka a healthy thump, “you idiot, you forgot to zip the tent flap.”

“You didn’t remember either.” He mumbled sleepily.

“You were the last one to leave the tent and come back.” She argued.

“Hmmm…” he hummed, sitting up. “Maybe I like my tent a little drafty.”

“Well that certainly matches the conditions in you head.” She tapped his forehead.

“Gee, thanks. And to think I bundled you up nice and cozy too. I even warmed some coffee over the campfire for you.” He paused. “You have no idea how hard that was.”

She took the cup in her hands. “I suppose this will make up for it.” The blanket began to slip from her shoulder. Before she could catch it, Sokka was bundling her up again.  With the sun in the sky again, it was beginning to warm some anyhow. She did like the autumn better in the daylight hours. The gold of the sun added a brilliance to the reds and oranges of the trees. The same draft that had pulled her from her slumber rustled the branches. She supposed that camping in the fall—though it paled in comparison to summertime camping—was rather nice.


	4. An Ear And A Shoulder

Azula can never seem to find the right words, but it means more than anything to know that she still tries. Perhaps because he knows that it isn’t in her nature to do so. And just seeing her put the effort in is a comfort in itself.

She doesn’t talk very much at all actually, not after a certain point. A few failed words and she stops altogether. It is strange to him because she always seems to know that right things to say in most situations. Sometimes he feels as though she heads in the right direction when consoling him but just…stops.

She has a steady flow, and then it wavers. Perhaps because she isn’t sure of herself. Isn’t sure if she’s doing this comforting thing right.

But he knows that she is. He doesn’t know how but she is oddly reassuring in her own way. She isn’t emotionally reassuring, not outright. And her physical gestures only go so far as covering his hand with her own.

He wants her to do more just as much as he doesn’t want any change at all.

He rather enjoys when she just sits silently and listens to him prattle on and on about things that bother him and sometimes things that don’t matter at all. As much as he loves Aang and his sister and Zuko they always seemed to spill their own problems instead of helping him with his.  

Because Sokka’s problems are never as bad as Aang’s; he doesn’t have to save the world, he doesn’t have that kind of awful pressure on him.

His problems aren’t as bad as Katara’s who has to constantly worry about losing her lover.

His problems aren’t as bad as Zuko’s who has a deep past to overcome and a throne with all the pressures that come with a throne.

His problems aren’t as bad as Toph’s who was born blind. “And she hasn’t complained about it once!”

But it was different with Azula who seemed to have a collection of her own struggles and still put them aside to talk about his. In fact, he thinks that she goes out of her way to avoid talking about herself. Maybe that is what possessed him to hug the woman very tightly, and practically unannounced.

He can’t quite gauge how she feels about this new arrangement. So he asks, he supposes that it can’t hurt to ask and he wonders if anyone has asked her about how she feels or if she is like him. A woman of problems swept under the rug because someone has it much worse.

He doesn’t really know what to say, so he just holds her. Holds her and waits for her to speak.  He doesn’t actually expect an answer so when she—begrudgingly—admits that she rather enjoys it, he is taken aback some.

He can’t help but smile though. Because he doesn’t think that she has let anyone so close for so long. He also thinks that this might be the first time that she has truly opened up to someone. The first time that she has listed the things that are on her mind. Some of them aren’t pretty and some managed to be less pretty still. But she lists them. And he listens to them.

Because she has listned to him for so long.

It is her turn to have a voice and his turn to lend an ear.

He knows what it is like to be shot down and shut down. To be reduced to only an ear or a shoulder. He doesn’t want her to be that, he wants her to feel as comforted and warm as she makes him feel. He wants to have just one more thing to remind him that she has changed, that she is no longer evil. That she never was. He wants another reminder that she was hurt just they way everyone else has been and he wants Katara and Aang and Toph and Zuko to know too.

She needs it.

She needs the love and the solace as much as he did.

He thinks that she needs it more.

Now that she has listened to him, he will listen to her. He will cradle her close and let her keep talking until she runs out of things to say and let her continue after that, even if it is mundane and trivial. He kisses the crook of her neck and prompts her to keep speaking.

And he gets it and more—the reminder he needed that she was just as afraid as any of them. That she is still worried; worried for the state of herself, worried that her mind might slip again, worried that she simply isn’t good enough and that all of her achievements are for naught.

He finds that it feels just as well to reassure her as it was to be reassured by her. Because—just as she knew that he would be okay—he knows that she will be. He can’t picture Azula fading away from herself for good.

Just like anyone else, all she needs is a shoulder to cry on and an ear to listen. Just like anyone else, all she needs is a hand to hold hers or arms to wrap around her. Just like anyone else, she just needs compassion and affection.

Just like him, she craves it.

Just like him, she gets it.


End file.
